Where Maine's Story Begins

What is it? It’s an egg mailer!

This tin container was used to safely transport 4 dozen eggs through the US mail service from York, Maine to Brighton, Massachusetts in the 1930s.

The eggs were sent by Giuseppe “Joseph” Cefalo (1894-1974) of York to his brother Louis Celfao, who lived in Brighton, MA. The brothers were immigrants from Torre le Nocelle, Avellino, Italy. Joseph and his wife and children lived in the Seabury section of York which was home to many other Italian immigrants. Some of these immigrants, like Joseph, came with their entire families; others came alone, leaving their wives and children behind, sending back paychecks earned working on the railroads, construction projects and farming to the “old” country.

York was the home to numerous immigrant families in the early 20th century. Besides Italians newcomers came from Canada, Japan, Greece, the British Isles and other countries.

Many thanks to Margaret Dube (who promised she’d “guess” what the object was but didn’t) for doing the oral history project on immigrant families in York which led to bringing this great object and the history associated with it to the Museums of Old York.